Virgin to mark decade of UK broadband

Virgin Media has commissioned a new art installation in London to celebrate the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK.

On March 31 2000, NTL - which later became Virgin Media - connected Britain's first ever broadband customer when it trialled the service in Gillingham, Kent.

To mark the occasion, Virgin Media has commissioned design firm United Visual Artists (UVA) to create an "immersive light installation" at London's South Bank.

Titled Speed Of Light, the installation will use 148 lasers across four floors of the Bargehouse industrial warehouse to reflect the data speeds possible with broadband via fibre optic cable. The display will be open to the public from April 9 to 19.

"For us, broadband is the internet and it has catalysed the sheer diversity of fantastic content and information that makes the internet so invaluable in our lives today," said Virgin Media executive director of broadband Jon James.

"We wanted to inject a bit of magic into something that's easy to take for granted, and we think the Speed Of Light installation is a fitting tribute to the amazing power of fibre optics.

"By using the same materials we use to deliver broadband to millions of homes in the UK, the display has a real sense of excitement and connection, and we hope people will enjoy being a part of this historical moment."

UVA creative director Matthew Clark added: "We found the inspiration for this project in the raw materials used in fibre optics. We took the notion of speed being light, and light being data and designed our installation based on this simple but powerful fact."

The cable operator also recently demonstrated its new 200Mbps broadband service, which is currently under trial at Ashford, Kent and Coventry, West Midlands.